In this episode, Nick speaks with Bianca Thomas, who had always struggled with codependency. She struggled with self-worth, self-love, and self-identity. She would continuously find herself getting into abusive relationships.

Luckily, she found a mentor at the gym who started to help her through her codependent behaviors. Then she met a woman and got into a relationship and quickly started reverting back to her old self. She was losing friends, her family kicked her out, and her mentor no longer wanted to work with her.

When they broke up, it was just what Bianca needed to get her life straightened out. Her parents offered her to come back home but Bianca felt she really needed to be on her own and overcome her codependency. She lived in her car and worked her way to getting her own apartment and living on her own.

Once you start healing and progress to overcoming codependency, you cannot go back. Bianco continued to work on overcoming her codependency.

About Bianca Thomas

Bianca is the co-founder, CFO, and COO of Evolve Ventures Technologies, and the host of the Evolve Ventures Podcast, a global podcast reached in over 50 countries; she is a cognitive behavioral therapist and success coach who helps people break the patterns and beliefs holding them back from optimizing their life and reaching their fullest.

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Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

00:00:08:08 – 00:00:27:17

Nick McGowan

Hello and welcome to The Mindset and Self-mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. And on this show, my guests and I unpack the stories that shape us, the lives that we lead on our path to self-mastery. So let’s not wait any longer. Let the games begin.

00:00:32:04 – 00:00:34:03

Nick McGowan

Hey, Bianca. Welcome to the show. How are you doing?

00:00:34:14 – 00:00:36:09

Bianca Thomas

I am great. Thanks for having me.

00:00:37:01 – 00:00:54:22

Nick McGowan

Yeah, I’m excited you’re here. We are. We had a quick conversation a couple of months ago. Kind of a prep call leading up to the show. And I got to be honest, it feels like that was almost a year ago. It was a long time ago, but I think it was just a few months ago. Yeah. And we basically just called it out as soon as we got back on the phone, like, good to see you again.

00:00:54:23 – 00:01:00:09

Nick McGowan

When was the last time we talked? My God. So appreciate that you’re here.

00:01:00:15 – 00:01:01:10

Bianca Thomas

It’s been a minute.

00:01:02:08 – 00:01:18:15

Nick McGowan

Yeah, I think it’s timely, though, because I think at that point we were talking about maybe doing this episode at a different time, like earlier in the summer or something. But today on LinkedIn, you shared about this being the one year anniversary of things. Now I’m jumping a little ahead, but we’re going to get to that in a minute.

00:01:18:15 – 00:01:26:01

Nick McGowan

So why don’t you tell us what you do for a living and give us one thing that most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.

00:01:27:02 – 00:02:00:16

Bianca Thomas

So what I do for a living is I’m a clinical mental health counselor, so I work with people struggling with mental health issues. And then I also am the co-founder, CFO and CEO of of All Ventures Technologies, the company that a friend of mine developed a few years ago. And it’s been booming. It’s been incredible. A random, weird thing that most people would not know about me.

00:02:00:16 – 00:02:07:17

Bianca Thomas

I don’t know if I would call this weird, but a lot of people don’t know that I actually used to be a competitive powerlifter.

00:02:08:08 – 00:02:17:07

Nick McGowan

Wow, that’s pretty awesome. So how did you get into that? And are you you said you used to so no longer doing that.

00:02:17:12 – 00:02:40:23

Bianca Thomas

I am no longer doing that. I hurt my back when I was 18. I was a absolute douchebag at that time and I decided I wanted to do an ego lift and I herniated a desk and it has been a struggle bus and a half ever since then. So I cannot live like that anymore.

00:02:42:06 – 00:02:50:13

Nick McGowan

Oh, man, that’s got to be tough, especially at 18. Dan, so have you had to get surgery or are you just mindful you’re back now?

00:02:51:00 – 00:03:06:01

Bianca Thomas

Thankfully, no. Yeah, I’ve had to go to physical therapy a few times. I actually was at the doctor’s yesterday. I have to get injections put into my spine, so that should be fun. But I can walk, so I’m grateful.

00:03:07:03 – 00:03:11:15

Nick McGowan

And that’s got to be kind of tough. So you were doing that, I guess in high school then?

00:03:12:18 – 00:03:23:23

Bianca Thomas

I was doing it not for my high school. My high school didn’t have a competitive powerlifting team. They do now. I actually used to be the coach of my high school’s team. There’s a fun thing about me. No one would know.

00:03:25:03 – 00:03:26:16

Nick McGowan

Yeah, that’s pretty cool.

00:03:26:16 – 00:03:33:06

Bianca Thomas

Yeah, but I used to do it independently in Massachusetts, where I’m from.

00:03:34:18 – 00:03:41:13

Nick McGowan

Gotcha. Okay. So you said that you were in Massachusetts, but where are you at now? Are you East Coast? West Coast, where you live in these days?

00:03:42:07 – 00:03:43:17

Bianca Thomas

No, I still live in mass.

00:03:44:07 – 00:04:10:05

Nick McGowan

Oh, okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, as an Eagles fan, I’ll forgive you for, you know, patriots and whatnot. So realistically, though, for you to go through what you went through when you were in high school and at 18, having that issue happen, that must have been pretty difficult because if you were planning on doing that, I assume that you were planning on doing that for quite some time and then boom, you’re not able to do it anymore.

00:04:10:05 – 00:04:12:11

Nick McGowan

So how did you manage your mindset through that?

00:04:14:04 – 00:04:57:12

Bianca Thomas

In all honesty, that wasn’t the most difficult thing going on in my life at that time. So I had been introduced into powerlifting from the person that I was dating at that time, and I actually started dating that person a week after we had met when I was 16, and that same week after this person told me that he loved me after having only known me for six days, which leads you to my poor decision making paradigm back at that time, it was a incredibly abusive relationship.

00:04:57:12 – 00:05:32:01

Bianca Thomas

You know, mentally, emotionally, sexually. I almost moved to like Colorado because he thought he was going to be in the Olympics for wrestling and it was just a really it was a really dark time in my life. It was really scary, you know. And I, I know the reason I had gotten into it was because I grew up as a kid feeling incredibly unlovable and incredibly unworthy.

00:05:32:02 – 00:05:56:01

Bianca Thomas

You know, my I love my parents to death. They did their best. But I just I never felt good enough. And I was always the black sheep. I had a lot of mental health challenges as a kid. I was the problematic middle child, and it caused a lot of chaos. And it also caused me to have a lot of, you know, inner turmoil.

00:05:56:19 – 00:06:19:15

Bianca Thomas

So by the time I’m 16 and I’m trying to find myself and trying to, you know, figure out my place in the world, this person comes into my life and I’m like, oh, my God, someone’s giving me attention. What a lot of people do when they have severe, low self-worth and low self-esteem. So I end up dating this person and it ended up being an abusive relationship.

00:06:19:15 – 00:06:43:10

Bianca Thomas

And it took me four years, but I was eventually able to get out of it. But, you know, unfortunately, the pattern only continued from that point and the cycle only started from that point. You know, I had a series of really toxic relationships after that. Thankfully, it was never to the point where it was abusive like that again.

00:06:43:21 – 00:07:14:15

Bianca Thomas

But I mean, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, they were just all very, very toxic and just very painful. And I was in a period of my life where I just genuinely had no idea who I was. I didn’t know my place in the world. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I didn’t know where I fit in or where I was supposed to go and I just kept getting caught up in these really vicious cycles.

00:07:15:12 – 00:07:39:12

Bianca Thomas

And at that point, I started to understanding my sexuality and started understanding like, Oh, I think I’m bisexual. Like, I’m, I’m finding myself being attracted to girls. Like, what is going on? I have a middle Eastern family. Like, I can’t be gay. I can’t experience this. Like what’s going to happen to me if they find out? So I just kept going back and forth and all of these places.

00:07:39:12 – 00:08:06:04

Bianca Thomas

And, you know, thankfully, I don’t know if it was God, I don’t know if it was Grace. I don’t know if it was the universe, whatever, whatever it was. But because of me always having been athletic and doing powerlifting and into personal development, I actually met my mentor at the gym and he introduced me to his business partner and meeting them.

00:08:06:04 – 00:08:30:20

Bianca Thomas

It completely changed my life. You know, they were the first two people who ever believed in me. Whoever saw me, whoever had an understanding of like, no, you actually do matter. There are these amazing things about you. And if you you know, if you just learn personal development, if you work on all of these things, if you do this, you know, you could be extraordinary.

00:08:31:19 – 00:09:09:10

Bianca Thomas

And I did. And doing that got me to meet my business partner. And we were able to start, you know, building our business and growing and doing all of these incredible things. But I had never fully worked on that unlovable component. I had never fully worked on that worthiness component. So to the story you were alluding to, I end up getting into another misaligned relationship with someone and it was another it was honestly pretty traumatic.

00:09:09:10 – 00:09:40:14

Bianca Thomas

It was with a woman and my parents found out and they didn’t know I was gay. So I ended up having to leave home and move in with this person after a month of knowing them, because I had nowhere to go and we ended up being together and I lost all of my friends, almost lost my business. My mentors didn’t want anything to do with me because I was just so I was like reverting to this person that I thought that I had overcome.

00:09:41:09 – 00:10:06:22

Bianca Thomas

And what I. You had alluded to a post I put on Instagram today, the day we’re recording this is actually a year from the day that I had left that relationship and had started to be able to completely turn my life around and, you know, start to develop into the person that I am today, that I’m just truly so grateful to be in and proud of.

00:10:07:23 – 00:10:25:08

Nick McGowan

And as you should be, there’s a lot of shit that can happen within a year and there’s a lot that can happen within an hour, a day, a week. And I think some people don’t really understand the power that they have within themselves once they start to make changes, you know, some people just let years go by and shit.

00:10:25:08 – 00:10:45:21

Nick McGowan

I’ll be honest, I, I was in a marriage for eight years and several of those years I just kind of allowed things to go by because I had just given up on different things and was unsure of how to work through it. But once you make that decision to start making changes that that muscle shows itself and you’re able to start using it, using it.

00:10:45:21 – 00:11:08:09

Nick McGowan

So here we are a year later. Congrats, by the way, and I’m proud of what you’ve done so far. And I’ve only known you for a little bit, so why don’t you give us a little bit of a little bit of context of the situation a little deeper than what you had. And then looking back at it now, this is kind of a live, raw moment where we get to kind of talk through where, you know, it’s been a year, it’s been a fucking year.

00:11:08:09 – 00:11:15:04

Nick McGowan

So what does this look like over the course of the year and what do you see coming up?

00:11:15:04 – 00:12:00:19

Bianca Thomas

This year has been one of the most painful but extraordinary years of my life. I was so desperately codependent. I couldn’t be alone. I couldn’t rely on myself. I had no sense of self-worth, no sense of identity. And I didn’t know how to navigate in the world without someone being there. And it was the first time in my life that I had ever finally been on my own, you know, because I went from living in my parents house to moving in with this person.

00:12:01:11 – 00:12:25:09

Bianca Thomas

And after we had broken up, you know, my parents were telling me to come back and telling me, you know, they wanted me to move home and we could work on things. And, you know, now is the opportunity and something inside of me just said, you know, don’t don’t do it. You can’t go from one world back into an old one.

00:12:25:09 – 00:12:51:05

Bianca Thomas

Like this is your opportunity. This is your chance to battle all of the shit that got you to this point that you’re in right now. Take it and I almost didn’t like I’m not going to lie. I almost moved back to my parents house because it was easier. It would have been so easy to just let someone take care of me again.

00:12:51:14 – 00:13:17:14

Bianca Thomas

But there was a voice that that said, you’re trying to do incredible things in the world with the business that you’re doing and the people that you’re helping and everything that you’re doing. You can’t go back. You have to do this. And so I did. And so when this person and I had broken up, it was a really bad breakup.

00:13:17:14 – 00:13:41:15

Bianca Thomas

And I actually was living out of my car for a while. You know, I was couch hopping on different people’s couches and a cousin of mine had let me go stay with her for a few days and then I finally was able to get an apartment, but I was sleeping on an air mattress for like a month. No furniture having to use like hot spot for my wife.

00:13:41:15 – 00:14:15:05

Bianca Thomas

I take in client calls and coaching calls and working from this apartment, kind of still living out of my car for a while. And it it challenged me in ways that I didn’t know was possible. Like, I, I if you would have asked me three years ago, like, what my life would have been like, I never would have assumed that that’s where I would have gone or that’s something that I would have had to do, especially given the upbringing that I had and the family that I had.

00:14:16:08 – 00:14:44:06

Bianca Thomas

So I was able to actually move out of that apartment and move into the one that I’m living in now, which has been incredible. It’s actually my old, the original mentor. This is his old apartment. So complete synchronicity. I spent so much time here before and now I live here. But I was able to move in here and I faced some of the darkest days of my life being here.

00:14:45:02 – 00:15:17:09

Bianca Thomas

It was the first time I had ever truly been alone, you know, I work from home and my business is online and I’ve done an exceptional job of being extra really selective of who I allow into my life. So I’m not really going out much. I don’t go to bars, I don’t go do all of these things. And I intentionally made sure not to fall into the old pattern again of just seeking pleasure doing these easy things.

00:15:17:21 – 00:15:48:12

Bianca Thomas

So I was sitting here in a completely empty apartment with just a couple of couches and a bed, and I had to face those parts of me that I had been running away from for so long, and the parts that I actually work on with clients of mine in the cognitive behavioral therapy and the cognitive behavioral therapy coaching that I do so challenging, limiting beliefs, understanding the thought processes that we have, understanding social learning theory.

00:15:48:12 – 00:16:25:17

Bianca Thomas

And how did you develop into the person that you are now understanding thought records and how the way that you think interacts with how you feel and causes you to do the things that you do. So I had to really look at my life and say, How did I get here and really analyze all of the different all of the different things that I had been running away from that had gotten me to the place where I was and the past year has been extraordinary because I was finally able to do that.

00:16:25:17 – 00:16:55:04

Bianca Thomas

I was able to see the darkest parts of me, to see the parts that I had been terrified of that kept me making those same mistakes over and over again and heal them. And to do the work that I do now with all of the people that I do that work with, you know, it wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t do that or running a six person team or having a tech company.

00:16:55:14 – 00:17:22:00

Bianca Thomas

You know, it’s I wouldn’t have been able to be this person if I didn’t let myself honestly suffer. And I know a lot of the new influencers and whoever out there, there’s a lot of them that they know you don’t need to suffer. You don’t need to go through pain. It doesn’t have to be. I actually think it’s the exact opposite.

00:17:22:23 – 00:17:54:23

Bianca Thomas

I think you have to face your demons. You have to face the darkest parts of you. And I think you have to suffer. You have to go through the pain, because otherwise how do you learn? Now, don’t sit in it. Don’t become a victim. Don’t allow the pain to start directing beliefs and start causing you to have, you know, maladaptive thinking processes, but learn from it, sit in it, try to recognize where is your mind taking you?

00:17:55:06 – 00:18:31:00

Bianca Thomas

Because if you can understand all of those things, if you can endure this suffering long enough, there’s always lessons at the end of it that you can start to work towards. And that’s exactly what I did. I finally got quiet and I sat and I listened and I was able to learn that my entire sense of worth, my entire sense of self, my entire sense of love ability came from somebody else telling me that I was enough from somebody else, telling me that I was deserving of being loved.

00:18:31:00 – 00:18:39:03

Bianca Thomas

And it was always people who were battling those demons themselves because like a track like.

00:18:40:14 – 00:19:01:15

Nick McGowan

And miserable people like miserable company and they pull those people in. It’s a it’s an interesting and powerful thing when you’re in a spot where you’re all by your fucking self and the only person you can deal with is you, because that’s the person you have to deal with. And I think a lot of people are afraid to step into that.

00:19:02:06 – 00:19:17:01

Nick McGowan

It’s also bullshit that they feed themselves, that we all do. I’ve done it. You’ve done it. Everybody that’s listened to this show has done it. And it’s a matter of if you continue to do it, if you continue to feed yourself the bullshit, because that’s conversations with people and like, you got to get real, you got to be aware of what’s going on.

00:19:17:01 – 00:19:34:15

Nick McGowan

They go, Oh yeah, but the wife, the kids, the this, the that, the job, the blah, blah, blah, like whatever they want to put in front of them because they’re fucking afraid of it. But when you’re there and you’re working through it, think back to that. Think back to that moment without living in the moment. Let’s watch the movie.

00:19:34:15 – 00:19:56:11

Nick McGowan

Don’t be in the movie. But thinking back to that moment, it’s almost like a GM when you’re in it and you’re actively working and you’re sweating your ass off. I’ve had sessions doing that where I’m fucking dripping because the emotions are coming out, all this stuff that’s coming out of it. So for somebody that’s in that spot that knows that they need to do it and they may be calling us bullshit right now, oh, fuck you.

00:19:56:11 – 00:20:09:12

Nick McGowan

You know, you need to do it. So what sort of advice would you give that person that’s sitting there going, I don’t know, because of whatever B.S. How did you get yourself to that spot? Where you’re like, I have to spend the time to do this and get away from the excuses?

00:20:11:06 – 00:20:39:20

Bianca Thomas

In all honesty, it took me having to suffer the same mistake over and over again, and I’ve only shared this on one other show, but the reason I ended up leaving that relationship was after a really, really horrible fight that this person and I had had where she didn’t like the people in my life, didn’t like my mentors, didn’t like all of these people.

00:20:40:03 – 00:21:10:11

Bianca Thomas

And we had gotten into an argument about one of my mentors, and it had gotten so escalated that I was trying to get into the shower and I had a towel over me and I ended up going next to the toilet and just crunching over, trying to like hide. I felt like so childish, but I was crunched over and I was screaming, Get away from me, get away from me, get away from me.

00:21:10:11 – 00:21:55:07

Bianca Thomas

Leave me alone. And our dog was downstairs and dogs barking and I’m screaming, crying, and I’m like, Please just leave me alone. Like, I can’t do this anymore. Get out of my face. And I don’t think I have ever been that triggered like I don’t think I’ve been that triggered since I was a kid, you know, when I was going through a lot of mental health challenges and, you know, being in a really dysfunctional family, but it took that it took me seeing myself in that moment and being like, how the fuck did I let myself get here?

00:21:56:15 – 00:22:14:15

Bianca Thomas

How the fuck did I let myself do this again? We got a dog together and I knew was a terrible idea, but I was so trying to like save it. But I’m like, well, we need to get a shared thing together and we need to make it happy and we need to do this and we need to do that.

00:22:14:15 – 00:22:42:20

Bianca Thomas

Like how many people have had a baby together because their marriage was failing and they’re like, Well, we need to do something to salvage it or, you know, whatever it might end up being. But I was in that moment and I’m like, Oh my God, I can’t do this. I can’t do this anymore. So in all honesty, it took me having to go there to finally be like, You can never let this happen again.

00:22:42:20 – 00:23:28:14

Bianca Thomas

And, you know, thankfully, I got the lesson and there have been so many moments sitting here in this apartment bawling my eyes out, just so angry at myself and blaming myself and trying to blame this other person, which never does anything because I’m the one that entered the relationship. It’s like you get to a point where you just stop blaming everyone else and you finally look in that mirror and you realize, you know, it’s your fault that you’re here and now it’s your responsibility to fix it.

00:23:28:14 – 00:23:50:11

Bianca Thomas

And now I work as a mental health counselor, right? So I work with a lot of trauma victims and a lot of people who have endured, honestly, the most horrific stories I’ve ever heard. So this is not to say that, you know, people who have truly been traumatized and who have experienced traumatic events like it’s your fault that you got there, that’s not what I’m saying at all.

00:23:51:03 – 00:24:16:18

Bianca Thomas

But I know for me, it 100% was my fault because I knew I shouldn’t have entered the relationship and I got into it anyways and every other relationship I knew it was wrong. But to your point, there was something inside of me that just like I couldn’t I couldn’t stop myself. It’s like the excuses were there. No, but they’re a good person.

00:24:16:18 – 00:24:49:05

Bianca Thomas

No, but you know, this time it will be different. No, but. No, but bop, bop, bop, bop up about whatever. And we have these excuses as protective mechanisms. We’re trying to gain some sort of safety, some sort of security. And it’s actually adaptive. It’s functional for human beings to go into what they know. It’s it’s a protective mechanism.

00:24:49:05 – 00:25:09:21

Bianca Thomas

We we continue the patterns that we know because they keep us safe. But the challenges we do it so well that it actually becomes a detriment. So we get into a familiar type of relationship because we know what it’s going to be like, but we also know how terrible it’s going to be, too. But the devil you know is better than the one that you don’t.

00:25:09:21 – 00:25:39:16

Bianca Thomas

So let me at least just do this and it’ll be fine and I’ll deal with it for a lot of people, the idea of change, the idea of growth, the idea of evolution, which is actually what our podcast and what our business is called, it’s called Evolve Ventures. The concept of changing is terrifying because it’s unfamiliar because it’s unknown, because as human beings, one of our core fundamental needs is certainty.

00:25:39:16 – 00:26:09:19

Bianca Thomas

And when we are not certain of what’s going to happen, we can’t do it. We won’t jump into it unless the pain is great enough. And that’s what it took for me. It took my paradigm and my entire world being shaken for me to finally realize I can’t do this anymore and I can’t work with people ethically and keep making these stupid ass mistakes, but trying to tell someone else to change their life.

00:26:10:20 – 00:26:40:08

Bianca Thomas

I had a lot of clients who knew that I was doing that and they quit and I ended up talking to them afterwards and I apologized and I said, You know, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I was so wrong. I should not have been coaching you and I was in that place. And now, thankfully, because of the experience that I’ve gone through and all of the work that I do and all of the education, I’m a I’m an avid learner.

00:26:40:08 – 00:27:11:13

Bianca Thomas

Like you can see all the books behind me that’s not even a fraction of the books that I have. I’m always learning. And so I’m able to really help the people that I work with. You know, I’ve worked with some of the most in sane stories you’ll ever heard, and I know it because I was able to go into the darkest places within myself and heal those and understand them and learn them and work through it so I know I can help other people do the same.

00:27:12:14 – 00:27:34:05

Nick McGowan

Yeah. And the the anchors are a big thing and people don’t really think about those consciously. We all don’t naturally just think about that. But for you to have that negative anchor, for you to now look back at and go, well, fuck, that’s never going to happen again, because that was extremely painful. And it goes into what you were talking about with suffering, and I’m right there with you.

00:27:34:05 – 00:28:00:21

Nick McGowan

There’s the influencers and the people of the world that are like, You don’t have to suffer. Fuck that 100%. Every single person is going to suffer in some sort of way. And yes, I agree with them to an extent. You don’t have to live in the suffering, but you do have to be aware of it. Acknowledge it. I think one of the one of the most life changing books I’ve ever read in my entire life is Man’s Search for Meaning from Viktor Frankl.

00:28:01:07 – 00:28:03:01

Bianca Thomas

The book is phenomenal all.

00:28:03:07 – 00:28:11:01

Nick McGowan

It’s all about meaning in Suffering, all of it. So having that meaning is huge.

00:28:11:20 – 00:28:45:03

Bianca Thomas

I am Natori is for me and my business partner. We actually rumble on this idea a lot, but I am an avid believer that things do not happen for a reason. I hate that quote. I really do because you can’t have heard the stories that I have heard of little girls and their dads coming into their room and doing things to them or, you know, just the horrific stories that I have heard.

00:28:45:14 – 00:29:10:06

Bianca Thomas

You can not say that it happened for a reason. There is no reason why that happened. But what I tell all of my clients is you have their choice and the opportunity right now to make a greater meaning from what happened. What happened to you is not fair. What happened to you was terrible. That should not happen to anybody.

00:29:10:18 – 00:29:32:00

Bianca Thomas

But what are we going to do now? What is the meaning that that is going to have for your life? And that actually is exactly what cognitive behavioral therapy does. So the type of therapy that I’m specialized in, it looks at the beliefs that we develop over our life span from, you know, our environment, from the situations we experienced, from the people that we’re around.

00:29:32:10 – 00:30:03:10

Bianca Thomas

And it looks at the beliefs that we develop about ourself and then how we engage in the world based on those beliefs structures. And so what CBT does is it helps to change the beliefs. It helps to restructure and remodel and remake the belief by, you know, helping to just change the style of thinking or change the behaviors or to like go out and seek new experiences, which is all three exactly what I did for myself.

00:30:04:00 – 00:30:31:12

Bianca Thomas

But so it really looks at what is the meaning that you are giving to the situations that you are in and what are you doing about them? Because most of us don’t realize that we are interpreting almost everything around us as negative and we’re acting on that. We’re acting on these unconscious patterns. And so when you take a meaning of I went through a breakup again, it means I’m worthless.

00:30:32:03 – 00:30:54:05

Bianca Thomas

And we don’t know. We’re saying this to our self, but we are. And you can tell by your behavior. So when everything goes through that lens of, I’m not good enough, I’m not lovable, I’m not worthwhile, the future is hopeless, which was exactly what I went through. You’re going to live a terrible life and I’m the proof I did.

00:30:56:05 – 00:31:18:19

Bianca Thomas

It wasn’t until I started changing the meaning that I was giving to all of these things and changing the meanings that I gave to myself that I was able to break free from all of those things. But to your original point, man, search for meaning. You create the meaning for your life. It is not something that just happens.

00:31:18:19 – 00:31:49:02

Bianca Thomas

Yes, life in and of itself does happen. Shit happens. What are you going to do about it? We all have that choice. We have the opportunity to make a choice about what happens, what we do about it, what it means about us in our future. And this is not to say changing these is easy, because it’s not when you’ve lived with a fundamental belief that you are not good enough for 1020, 30, 40, 50 years.

00:31:49:10 – 00:32:13:19

Bianca Thomas

It’s not going to change overnight. And you’re not going to go from one end of the extreme to the other in a millisecond. But if you do the work, it will start to change. And I, I am the proof. I was a hopeless wreck. I was a wreck. I was suicidal. I was self-harming. I kept getting into these horrible situations.

00:32:14:21 – 00:32:48:21

Bianca Thomas

I, you know, I if you saw me as a kid, you never would have believed that I would be the person that I am today. But I was able to and it all came from little by little over time, making new things happen for me, making new choices slowly and surely, getting myself out there, doing exposure therapy, forcing myself into situations and learning how to be comfortable with it, learning how to speak in front of a camera like this.

00:32:48:21 – 00:33:17:18

Bianca Thomas

One of my mentors had me record a video every single day and send it to him so I could get comfortable speaking and being in front of a camera. We all have the capability of doing it. The difference is, will you in what is it going to take for you to finally do that? For me, it took me needing to be curled next to a toilet, hysterically crying and shaking for me to finally change.

00:33:18:02 – 00:33:23:15

Bianca Thomas

And I hope none of you have to go through that. But if you do, let that be the final straw.

00:33:24:15 – 00:33:44:04

Nick McGowan

Yeah, that’s a good point. I don’t think that people have to go through things, but at the same time, I do think there are a lot of people that they need to feel through things. They need to go through situations. And it’s interesting, I was on a podcast recently about dads. I’m not a father, but I’ve got one.

00:33:44:15 – 00:34:08:01

Nick McGowan

And I was talking about my relationship with him, my relationship, my grandfather, and how different things have come up and how there’s just different ways that they’ve passed along information to each other and then it gets to you and it’s up to you to either break the chain or continue to move forward with it. And you don’t have to subscribe to everything that is given to you, but it’s a matter of doing something with it.

00:34:08:10 – 00:34:34:19

Nick McGowan

Now, one of the things that I love in this entire world is technology, but one of the things that I have grown to kind of hate certain ways is technology, because we get so we want things instantly, we want everything right. Fuck it now. And I know that I do at different times, but this sort of work isn’t a right now thing and I think that holds some people back, but they’re like, Well, fuck it, I can hop on Instagram or Tik Tok and get dopamine after dopamine.

00:34:34:19 – 00:35:09:23

Nick McGowan

After dopamine. Then I can eat fast food and ice cream and look fucking happy. But you’re not. That’s just one big bandage on another bandage on another bandage. This work takes time to be able to do it. Some of those people have to go through shit to be able to beat tough and go, All right, I know that this really sucked and I need to move through it, but what sort of advice would you give to somebody that’s on their path towards self-mastery and trying to make those changes, but they’re just not able to get into that space to start the work.

00:35:09:23 – 00:35:31:01

Bianca Thomas

Have the courage to be vulnerable enough to look at the darkest parts of yourself. And I use the word vulnerable very intentionally. A lot of us think it’s a matter of just grit and tough it out and whatever. And I don’t think that’s true. You can’t tough your way out of trauma. You can’t tough your way out of depression.

00:35:31:05 – 00:35:54:03

Bianca Thomas

You can’t tough your way out of panic disorder and agoraphobia or a failing marriage or a failing business or whatever. You have to be willing to be vulnerable enough to understand what is really going on and then go get help.

00:35:54:03 – 00:36:10:22

Nick McGowan

Yeah, it’s a great point. Great point. And I know that you’re actively doing the work again. I know we’ve only known each other for a little bit of time here, but I’m proud of what you’ve done and the work that you’ve put in and who you are now. So thank you for doing that and for sharing and continuing to do the fucking work because it’s not over.

00:36:11:06 – 00:36:14:03

Nick McGowan

It’s a constant thing. It’s the evolution, right?

00:36:15:06 – 00:36:26:07

Bianca Thomas

Exactly. Every day I will never stop doing this. You know, it’s not it’s not six months, you’re healed and then you stop. It’s six months, and then the rest of your life.

00:36:27:05 – 00:36:32:08

Nick McGowan

Mm hmm. Wow. So where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

00:36:33:22 – 00:37:02:02

Bianca Thomas

I am on every social media platform. I I’m more prevalent on Instagram. So the my name is evolve with Bianca or you can follow of all ventures technologies. We’re on Facebook, Instagram, we have a private Facebook page. It’s a free, free page. We have incredible people in there of all venture society. So those are all, you know, a few places that you can go.

00:37:02:02 – 00:37:04:10

Bianca Thomas

And the podcast of All Ventures.

00:37:05:17 – 00:37:11:13

Nick McGowan

Beautiful, everybody go check it out. All that stuff will be in the show notes as well. And Bianca, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s been a pleasure.

00:37:12:07 – 00:37:13:05

Bianca Thomas

Thank you for having me.

00:37:14:16 – 00:37:37:07

Nick McGowan

Another great conversation on today’s episode of The Mindset and Self-mastery show. So what did you think of the show today? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Check out the Instagram or Facebook page to join the conversation. If you enjoyed the episode, please jump to iTunes and subscribe rate and leave a five star review. It helps us be found and helps others be healed.

00:37:37:20 – 00:37:58:12

Nick McGowan

If this episode opened your eyes, made you think or smile at all, then I’m sure it’ll do the same for your friends. Check out the show notes for more info from today’s episode and check out other episodes on the Mindset and Self-mastery show dot com as well as our YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube and look up the mindset and self-mastery show.

00:37:59:03 – 00:38:17:15

Nick McGowan

Thanks again to our incredible guests for being real, honest and vulnerable with us today. I’d like to thank our sponsors and most importantly, I’d like to thank you, thank you for hanging out with us today. Your support means the world to us. And with that, remember, your mindset matters. And so do you.